What is the most amazingly stupid sentence you've even read or heard? I mean that sort of sentence that's so stupid, relying on either flawed premises, faulty logic, or a combination of both, it has more nonsense than words?

About a dozen of days ago the conservative lobbying group from my country, France, named Manif Pour Tous, compared children with only one parent (as a reference to opening medically assisted procreation to single adults) with GMO vegetables: "Après les légumes OGM, les enfants à un seul parent ?" ("After GMO vegetables, children with only one parent?") That's already bad enough; even though I can conceive some concern about whether children with only one parent are less happy than those who have two (although this should be let to people who are willing to actually study this rather than ideologues), this sentence in particular is just silly biotechnophobia, using the bad reputation GMOs have in France (more so than in the US since they're banned from cultivation here) to condemn people.

But I'm not talking about that sentence. The other sentence from Manif Pour Tous I'm talking about is much, much worse.

"Agir pour le respect des animaux et des plantes, mais pas pour celui des enfants ?"
For those of you who don't understand French and need the traduction to be amazed by this sentence's sheer stupidity:
"Acting for the respect of animals and plants, but not for that of children?"

I promise you it made by brain boild when I read it.
This sentence was said as a commentary for the first one I mentioned. By "respect" I suppose it means "not manipulating life with GMOs" considering the context and as I said the fact GMOs can't legally be cultivated in my country. There are so many reasons why this sentence is stupid. This is a false equivalence considering that we are not considering genetically modifying humans, and the alledged lack of "respect" of children here is about not letting them having a mother and a father.
But what about "respecting" animals and plants? I'll start with plants. What would "respecting" plants mean? Once again I suppose this refers to the ban of GMOs here, which would mean there's something intrinsically wrong about doing that, because it's playing God/arrogant to life/whatever (the kind of deontological arguments based on personal feelings about how much potential a technology has rather than genuine concern about inflicting bad treatment to a sentient being). We're already using farmed plants for our own ends rather than for the sake of the plants themselves and there's no reason to believe this is unethical, GMO or not, since they are not sentient.
And for animals... *sigh* this is the most hurtful part of the sentence. I suppose it is about farmed animals, but we are not respecting them, even for the "lower" standards Manif Pour Tous is fighting against. Farmed animals are usually forcedly impregnanted using sperm taken from males put in the reproductive systems of females they never encounter themselves. Isn't that kind of thing Manif Pour Tous is fighting against? Although to be completely fair father animals don't necessarily bond with their babies the same way humans do. Beyond that, the lives of farmed animals is usually highly conditioned to the point family bonds between mother and baby are often broken if not non-existent in the first place: see calves separated from mother cows, mother pigs being barely able to move to take care of their babies, and chicks who never see their mothers. Also, genetic changes are not inherently bad, and you can be sure that there were many genetic changes through selective breeding in the animal agriculture that lowered the quality of life of farmed animals and definitely are "non-GMO": chicken who grow so much their legs can't support their weight, cows who produce more milk than what's useful for their calves to grow and thus meaning the nutrient leech becomes worse, and even pets like dog breeds with respiratory problems that are directly related to their anatomy.
I can understand the relevance of asking whether children with only one parent are going to be as happy as others, but I'm not convinced it's what Manif Pour Tous is advocating for. Instead they seem to care about purity and "rights" to have two parents of opposite sexes, based on dogmatic deontology and resistance to change. This sentence is full of silly premises and is not even logically consistent, considering how much worse farmed animals take it compared to anything that would change the way we see families in human society, in addition to showing downright churlish biotechnophobia.

What are other amazingly stupid sentences you've come across, which rely on so many flawed premises and/or faulty logic they have more stupidity in them than words? Let's have fun debunking such amazingly stupid claims about any topic thanks to logic!

Last edited by Canastenard on Mon Oct 16, 2017 1:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Oh my that description alone gave me a good laugh! I'd be curious to see the posts themselves if you can find them back.

BrianBlackwell wrote:Please explain how inference, reasoning, knowledge and study are not functions of thought; and how principles regarding the function of a wholly subjective phenomenon can be anything but subjective? Again, this does not deny logic's validity as a means of governing the subjective phenomenon of thought. What's being challenged is the assertion that logic is objective, when 100% of its apprehension, expression and application is subjective.

Oh yeah, my friend said this the other day when we were discussing whether or not morality is subjective, and he said this:
-"You know, since you have your own beliefs on what morality is, that proves my point that morality is subjective."
-"Wow Tom, lemme tell you, that uh, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard you say."
It's odd, since he's not a stupid guy. He's one of the more rational people I've seen on the internet.

Oh yeah, my friend said this the other day when we were discussing whether or not morality is subjective, and he said this:
-"You know, since you have your own beliefs on what morality is, that proves my point that morality is subjective."
-"Wow Tom, lemme tell you, that uh, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard you say."

Hope you explained why, some people believe that's an argument.

"I have my beliefs about the shape of the Earth too. I say 'round', and flat Earthers disagree. Is that subjective too?"

People usually catch on pretty quickly that it's possible to hold incorrect beliefs about objective things.

"I have my beliefs about the shape of the Earth too. I say 'round', and flat Earthers disagree. Is that subjective too?"

People usually catch on pretty quickly that it's possible to hold incorrect beliefs about objective things.

Yeah, I said something like that.
If I recall accurately, I said something like this:

No, it is possible for you just to be completely wrong. You can't just bring relativism into this, since it's unscientific BS, and science is just a branch of philosophy. You know what, let's apply the same standards to science. I believe in evolution, yet people such as creationists disagree. I have my own beliefs in evolution, and so do they. Is one of us wrong, or is it just subjective? Again, since science is just a branch of philosophy, you should be applying the same standards. Morality is based on an absolute truth, much like a scientific theory.

I didn't say all that exactly, and I did admittedly put a few extras on this, but this is pretty much everything I said. I want to continue the conversation with him, since we didn't get to finish it. He's a real nice guy though, so I try not to come off as an asshole.

I feel I should have posted that earlier since it's 10-day old, but Emmanuel Macron's statement about glyphosate's renewal is pure gold.

"I asked the government to take the necessary predispositions to ban the usage of glyphosate in France as soon as other alternatives are found, and at most in 3 years."

This is of course a populist statement considering people's general apprehension of pesticides and probably a way to reassure those who were disappointed by the renewal in particular. But this sentence just assumes that we'll find alternatives in the next few years, and coming from a non-scientist who apparently has no evidence that we have promising clues to find them it is an obviously faith-based statement. And also this herbicide has been used for decades now, so finding equivalents in term of toxicity, environmental impact, efficacity, price and human labor would require huge intensification of scientific research since it would require to discover in three years what we haven't since glyphosate has been used. And if the alternative is an hypothetical other herbicide, then I doubt it will appeal to glyphosate opponents because I doubt those like pesticides anyway, unless maybe it is "natural" and thus potentially acceptable in these people's mind (which will be a hard task because I'm not aware of any herbicide that's of "natural" origin).